You mean like changing ID laws 2months before an election, changing poll hours, location, early votes and stuff?

god that was disgusting, wasnt it? amazing how all these politicians running on "AMERICA!!!" do shit that is so fucking contrary to the ideals this country are supposed to be founded on. we should be wanting more people voting, not less

in a perfect world, politicians wouldn't get to say a word and anyone on their payroll wouldn't get to say a word about them. their past would be ALL they have to stand on. maybe elections wouldn't be popularity contests but you still end up with popular vote not being why someone is elected.

Rather than try and limit how much people can give, we should be seeking legislation regulating how much candidates can spend. That way not only are special interests limited, but super rich politicians don't hold such a huge advantage in running for office. As others have said though, trying to get politicians to regulate their own funding is silly. It's the same reason Americans should be cautious of anyone seeking to extend the governments power . . . once granted powers are never given up.

Rather than try and limit how much people can give, we should be seeking legislation regulating how much candidates can spend. That way not only are special interests limited, but super rich politicians don't hold such a huge advantage in running for office. As others have said though, trying to get politicians to regulate their own funding is silly. It's the same reason Americans should be cautious of anyone seeking to extend the governments power . . . once granted powers are never given up.

that would just funnel money to outside groups, unless you were willing to regulate them as well. but then the way around that is to create more groups for more cap. a lot needs to be done, and i dont see any of it being done tbh

Good for Franken. CU needs to have its head chopped off, body dismembered, burned, and then the ashes blown up with a nuke. That decision was one that absolutely threatened democracy in America. I have never been so proud of this country than I was to see that Karl Rove got a 1% return on the near half billion dollars he pumped into the election around the country (and that doesn't even include Crossroads GPS his 501C4 "charity" he doesn't have to reveal shit about).

If you get a chance, go watch Monday's Colbert Report on Hulu. Colbert has done more than anyone on television to reveal the fuckery of Citizen's United (how he didn't win an Emmy for it is baffling. He deserves a damn Nobel Prize frankly). He had his lawyer Trevor Potter on explaining how to make the rest of the money in his Super Pac magically disappear. He just has to start another 501C4 "charity" then he takes the money from his Super Pac, transfers it through his current 501C4, with a letter telling them what to do with it (in this case send it to the other 501c4), and poof all the money disappears into the other charity and not a single dime ever has to be reported to the IRS because that money magically doesn't exist anymore in their eyes. So essentially you can filter millions and millions of dollars through tax free exchanges and then pay yourself with that 501c4 money. The entire system Citizen's United established is so corrupt, so completely shadowy, so inherently wrong in a democratic republic that it is just a disgrace to the Constitution and for the America everyone constantly claims the founder's envisioned.

---------- Post added 2012-11-15 at 08:26 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Laize

What level of support does one need before public funding kicks in? I would say contribution limits would still be the better way to go as that's a self-filtering system.

5% of the national vote to receive the chunk of public money set aside in the general election fund iirc. So basically not going to happen unless someone super rich can fund their own campaign outside of the major parties like Perot did.

I suppose public funding would be the least objectionable means if there were something wrong with just limiting contributions.

In the end that ends up as a giant mess too. Every single election there are dozens and dozens of investigations from the national to local levels where a rich guy will give X amount of people the money to give to a candidate. Vern Buchanan a Republican representative from Florida got busted for having his employees donate to his campaign and then reimbursing them through his company (reportedly even threatened those who wouldn't do it with job loss). Hell one of the BCS Bowls got busted last year because the President was doing the same thing with his employees in forcing them to filter money for him to candidates. Individual contributions are so incredibly hard to police to make sure every single one is legitimate.

Good for Franken. CU needs to have its head chopped off, body dismembered, burned, and then the ashes blown up with a nuke. That decision was one that absolutely threatened democracy in America. I have never been so proud of this country than I was to see that Karl Rove got a 1% return on the near half billion dollars he pumped into the election around the country (and that doesn't even include Crossroads GPS his 501C4 "charity" he doesn't have to reveal shit about).

If you get a chance, go watch Monday's Colbert Report on Hulu. Colbert has done more than anyone on television to reveal the fuckery of Citizen's United (how he didn't win an Emmy for it is baffling. He deserves a damn Nobel Prize frankly). He had his lawyer Trevor Potter on explaining how to make the rest of the money in his Super Pac magically disappear. He just has to start another 501C4 "charity" then he takes the money from his Super Pac, transfers it through his current 501C4, with a letter telling them what to do with it (in this case send it to the other 501c4), and poof all the money disappears into the other charity and not a single dime ever has to be reported to the IRS because that money magically doesn't exist anymore in their eyes. So essentially you can filter millions and millions of dollars through tax free exchanges and then pay yourself with that 501c4 money. The entire system Citizen's United established is so corrupt, so completely shadowy, so inherently wrong in a democratic republic that it is just a disgrace to the Constitution and for the America everyone constantly claims the founder's envisioned.

---------- Post added 2012-11-15 at 08:26 PM ----------

5% of the national vote to receive the chunk of public money set aside in the general election fund iirc. So basically not going to happen unless someone super rich can fund their own campaign outside of the major parties like Perot did.

---------- Post added 2012-11-15 at 08:31 PM ----------

In the end that ends up as a giant mess too. Every single election there are dozens and dozens of investigations from the national to local levels where a rich guy will give X amount of people the money to give to a candidate. Vern Buchanan a Republican representative from Florida got busted for having his employees donate to his campaign and then reimbursing them through his company (reportedly even threatened those who wouldn't do it with job loss). Hell one of the BCS Bowls got busted last year because the President was doing the same thing with his employees in forcing them to filter money for him to candidates. Individual contributions are so incredibly hard to police to make sure every single one is legitimate.

I'm equally leery of a system that supports a multitude of political parties. India has such a system and they get so little done in Parliament they're called a "functional anarchy".

I'm equally leery of a system that supports a multitude of political parties. India has such a system and they get so little done in Parliament they're called a "functional anarchy".

It would be okay if it worked, but it simply doesn't in first past the post voting. In the end you would end up with a guy that 20% of the population wanted running the country (well in the US since 1/3rd of us vote it would actually be around 8% or so of the country that actually voted for the winning candidate in a five party system). It would be a nightmare and would quickly revert back to our current situation.

I think it's important to at least have a general idea of where you'd draw the line (How many candidates? How many parties? How much money gets set aside and how it's divvied up etc) when you take away a self-determining system such as "Who could get the most people to donate to his campaign?"

That's a problem with a parliamentary system with too many parties. Officially parties don't actually have the power in government here. Won't be an issue.

It would have been easier to answer this question by saying something like "Maybe the public finance system would only support 5 candidates" or something.

Then if you have 3 or more candidates operating on an equal level, chances are good you'd have to change electoral victories to a condition of plurality rather than majority. I'm not sure that's a good idea at all.

I think it's important to at least have a general idea of where you'd draw the line (How many candidates? How many parties? How much money gets set aside and how it's divvied up etc) when you take away a self-determining system such as "Who could get the most people to donate to his campaign?"

I'd settle with ~5-10%. Enough that any serious candidate can get in but enough to weed out nutbags. Money can be tied to a cost index.